Multi-plume Pulsed Laser Deposition for Advanced 3-d Micro-structuring (MULTIPLE)

该研究计划旨在表明，我们可以使用脉冲激光沉积，这是一种物理气相传输技术，使用三个单独的激光产生的等离子体羽流，以薄膜形式生长基本上任何结构。我们将使用三个激光源，指向三种目标材料，这些材料可以是任意成分，化学计量和格式。然后，羽流入射到将接收定向等离子体羽流的衬底上，以允许薄膜以所需的几何形状、组成和格式生长。具有这三个目标的灵活性在某些方面等同于使用三原色来构造任何可以想象的后续颜色，如在彩色图表中。羽流在时间和空间上的混合将使独特的复杂材料得以生长。然而，这种颜色的类比更进一步，因为我们现在能够在基底上“画”任意组合的材料，就像艺术家将颜色混合然后在画布上作画一样。新的薄膜几何形状将很容易生长，本计划的目的是详细探索什么是可能的，什么是可取的和有用的，什么，虽然可取，不能生长。一旦我们有了这些知识，那么我们已经实现的所有生长几何形状都将被评估，以用于实际和有用的光学器件技术中。

The research programme is intended to show that we can use Pulsed Laser Deposition, which is a physical vapour transport technique, to grow essentially any structure in thin film format, using three separate laser-generated plasma plumes. We will use three laser sources, directed to three target materials, which can be of arbitrary composition, stoichiometry, and format. The plumes are then incident on a substrate which will receive the directed plasma plumes, to allow a thin film to grow in the desired geometry, composition and format.The flexibility of having these three targets is in some ways equivalent to the use of the three primary colours to construct any subsequent colour imaginable, as in a colour chart. Mixing of plumes, both in time and space, will enable uniquely complicated materials to be grown. This colour analogy goes further however in that we will now be able to 'paint' arbitrary compositions of materials onto substrates in the same way that artists will colour mix and then paint onto a canvas. New thin film geometries will be readily grown, and the intention in this programme is to explore in detail what is possible, what is desirable and useful, and what, though desirable, cannot be grown. Once we have this knowledge, then all growth geometries that we have achieved will be assessed for their application in practical and useful optical device technologies.